At Artech, our teams are fluent in agile approaches and bring our culture of commitment and innovation to ensure that work gets done on time. We believe, that while pure agile can work given the right environment and variables, in the real world you need to adapt your approach. Our ability to do so allows us to work side-by-side with your team members to march in the same direction and enable your enterprise to move faster and build smarter.
One of the biggest misconceptions teams make going agile is the idea that Agile means “Work Without a Plan.” Often, companies with this philosophy end up confronting a mad race at the end of the project to hit deadlines and budget. We believe in creating an entire roadmap; specific enough to provide visibility into timelines. As we run through the SDLC our clients get real-time updates into the timelines and budget forecasts. You will always know your project’s status at the level of detail you prefer, and it will be clear, consistent, and aligned to your needs.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM STRUCTUREWorking in an Agile mindset, our development teams focus on close collaboration and a self-organized team structure. We know that when it comes to projects, the people are often responsible for more trouble than the technology! Our developers are well rounded and can adapt to the situation, such as stepping in for QAs and BAs depending on the situation.
A NECESSITY FOR ANY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANYOur approach to project management focuses on both the micro and macro measurements. At any point in the project, we can bring awareness and adjust to changes in scope. We are able to loop in our clients to adjust and approve all aspects of the product with regularly scheduled showcases and user acceptance testing.
WHEN THE AGILE METHOD IS MORE THAN JUST WHAT YOU DOWe know that our clients expect us to work in an Agile method while sometimes integrating with their existing waterfall processes. This stems from the fact that we view Agile as a mindset, not its different activities.
In the digital world where companies are facing increased competition where time to market is the largest hurdle, Agile fuels the ability to release before the competition. Assuming time to market is a greater concern than releasing a full feature set at initial launch, Agile will quickly produce a working solution. After the initial launch, the software can be improved upon in iterations.
The tight coupling of customer and development allows for a stronger sense of ownership. The customer is frequently working with the project team throughout the different phases.
Agile uses user stories which have business-focused acceptance criteria. Along with this, agile focuses on the needs of real users to incrementally deliver value (not just a software component).
By getting the product in front of customers to test often with frequent deployments, issues with quality are found earlier in the software development cycles. This enables better prioritization and gives the business the power to control quality.
Show the big picture of the product so we always know where we are and where we are going. Share how requested features translate into components and work. Illustrate available capacity so we can make choices on how to best use resources. Communicate clearly what everyone is producing or actively participating and the dependencies.
Maintain a living version of the product with updates by release. Create simple requirements and test plans that all team members can understand and use. Tell the story in an action-oriented, user-focused way. Ease the addition of new team members through clearly readable history. Ensure a traceable relationship between all documents. All plans should be easy to use and show the needed level of content or detail.